


Miss Weasley

by Ellinou



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, biography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 9,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24027226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellinou/pseuds/Ellinou
Summary: It would take someone quite special to have six older brothers, marry Harry Potter, be a Quidditch champion and raise three children without going crazy.Luckily, Ginevra Molly Weasley is quite special.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	1. I wish I had been...

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Miss Weasley](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/615886) by Ellie. 



A D.

She had gotten a D on her first Transfiguration assignment. McGonagall had handed her the paper back, her lips pursed and her eyes hard behind her glasses.

“Could be better, Miss Weasley,” she said. “I hope you’ll emulate your brothers and study harder from now on.”

When the bell had rung, about ten minutes later, she had left with the group of first-years who were babbling with excitement, each one proud—or not—of his or her grade. Ginny walked up the stairs to the Gryffindor common room with the four boys in her grade, taking solace in the thought of what she was going to tell her diary. He could comfort her, he always found the right words. Like when she told him about Harry...

“Is that your Transfiguration homework?” said a voice at the entrance to the common room, startling the girl. “Let me see.”

She turned around and saw Percy, sitting at a table behind a mountain of books, holding out a hand. He wiggled his fingers impatiently.

“Come on, give it here, I haven’t got all day, I have three feet of parchment to write for next week’s Potions class.”

Ginny sighed. She should have hidden her assignment, she could have lied about her grade, said she had gotten an A, or even an E. Now Percy would tell their parents that she had failed the first paper of her school year. Resigned, she handed her brother the scroll and bit her thumbnail while he looked at it.

“A D?” he exclaimed. “That’s not serious, Ginevra, come on! I’ve never gotten less than an A in this subject, neither has Charlie. Even Bill never failed.”

He gave her back the paper with a frown.

“You’re going to have to work harder.”

She turned, upset, and began to walk across the common room to her room. Halfway there, she met Harry, sitting in an armchair, who asked her what was going on. She didn’t even have the strength to lie to him.

“Is that all?” he asked when she had finished telling him. “Don’t be upset about that, come on! I got a T on that paper, and look at me, I’m still alive!”

A small smile appeared on her lips. She was about to thank him when her brother—Ron, this time—walked up.

“Hey Gin’,” he said without even looking at her. “Coming, Harry?”  
“Yeah, I’m coming. See you later,” he said as he left.

Of course. Harry was Ron’s best friend, he’d never look at Ginny the way she wanted him to look at her. She was just his friend’s little sister.

“Nice talking to you,” Ginny muttered towards the closing portrait of the Fat Lady.  
“Are you talking to yourself now?” a mocking voice asked behind her.

She rolled her eyes as she turned around.

“Our beloved baby sister is talking to herself!”  
“Shut up, George.”  
“She’s really losing it!” continued the redhead, drawing a few laughs from the half-dozen students around them. “I’m Fred.”  
“I’ve been living with you for eleven years, unfortunately,” Ginny replied. “You’re George. Now get out of my way.”

George said something else, but Ginny ignored him, clutching her books to her chest and walking through the group of the twins’ friends, eyes glued to the floor, until she reached the stairs that led up to the girls’ dormitories.

Sometimes, she wished she had been sorted to another house. Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff. Even Slytherin. Anywhere but Gryffindor. Elsewhere, she wouldn’t have had the shadow of six big brothers over her, each one handsome, smart, funny, popular. Each one perfect.

She wished she could have been Ginevra Molly Weasley before being simply a little sister.


	2. Stormy nights

_Step by step, she walked slowly through this tunnel she knew very well without realizing it. Part of her was trying to shout out that she was in danger, that she had to turn around, go back up to the castle, warn someone, a grown-up. Dumbledore. But it was a waste of time, that voice could scream until it was exhausted, Ginny was no longer in control of her limbs. In a trance-like state, her legs walked, tirelessly, taking her to a place she didn’t want to see._

In her bed, Ginny tossed and turned, her sleeping face tormented by her nightmare. Her legs were kicking, so much so that her red bedcover eventually slipped off, leaving her upper body, only dressed in a thin t-shirt, exposed to the cold air. She shivered.

_She could feel rats running by her feet. They were all going in the opposite direction from her, as if they were running away from what she was walking towards, their sharp claws clicking on the wet floor. One of them grazed her bare ankle. She shivered with disgust at the touch of the vermin’s coarse hairs on her skin._

_All around her, she could hear drops falling from the ceiling, forming puddles at her feet. The dripping sounds punctuated her steps. One drop, one step. One drop, one step._

Outside, the light rain that had been falling on Hogwarts since early evening had shifted into higher gear. Large drops were now falling almost horizontally, a strong wind blowing them against the castle wall, producing an infernal drumming against the windows. On the floor below, little Romilda Vane had been awakened by a rumble of thunder and was hugging her stuffed animal, missing her parents more than ever. Above, Lavender, unable to sleep, looked out the window at the lake, its surface battered by the wind.

But Ginny was the only Gryffindor girl of her year, alone in her room. So there was no one to hear her moan in her sleep.

_In front of her, just a few steps away, was an opening. The room it opened onto was so large that she could neither see its back wall nor its ceiling. Her imagination filled in the gaps: greenish moss-coated pillars rising as far as the eye could see, a floor permanently covered with a layer of stagnant water, also green. And in the background, hidden in the darkness, a huge statue. A mean-looking man. And when he opened his mouth..._

_Ginny moaned. The voice screaming at her to turn around was now hysterical. Ginny would have liked to comply, but she couldn’t. Her legs led her into the room, then made her turn left. She saw a young man with brown hair, a little older than her. He smiled at her, but his eyes remained cold. Ginny had rarely seen such a physically attractive boy, but she was terrified of him; every fiber of her body just wanted to run away. He opened his mouth:_

_“Ginevra Weasley,” he said in a soft, melodious, yet cold voice. “We meet at last.”_

_Ginny screamed._

A flash of lightning crossed the cloudy sky, briefly illuminating the entire castle. Almost at the same moment, a deafening thunderclap sounded, suddenly waking up half of the castle’s inhabitants—except, of course, for Slytherins and Hufflepuffs, who could hear nothing from the bottom of their dungeons.

Ginny sat up suddenly, her brown eyes wide open, her chest heaving with her panting breath. For a few seconds, she couldn’t remember where she was. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness and ascertained Tom Marvolo Riddle was not crouching behind the curtains, she wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and rested her head on her pillow again, pulling her blanket up to her chin.

Her nightmares had almost disappeared. Eight months before, she had been waking up almost every night from a bad dream about You-Know-Who, the Chamber of Secrets, the Basilisk... Now, she had almost managed to forget everything, at least at night.

Except on stormy nights.


	3. Halfway Across the World

With a dreamy smile, Ginny watched the couples dancing around her. The girls looked like butterflies, with their beautiful colourful dresses floating around them. Being only thirteen, she shouldn’t have been here, at the Yule Ball, but when Neville had invited her, she couldn’t resist becoming a princess, at least for one night. Too bad her Prince Charming hadn’t been the one to invite her.

She was sitting at one of the tables at the back of the room, barefoot, massaging her toes. She’d danced with Neville, and the poor fellow had crushed her feet more than once. When she had asked for a break, he’d apologized profusely. She had finally convinced him that she wasn’t about to die, and he’d gone to dance with Hannah Abbott. Ginny could see them a few feet away from her, Hannah bravely hiding her grimaces of pain.

On the other side of the room, opposite where Ginny was, she could see Harry and her brother. The Patil sisters had left them a while ago and they hadn’t moved from their seats in at least half an hour. All that time, she had been trying to gather her Gryffindorian courage to go and ask Harry to dance. Complete waste of time. Tonight, the Great Hall seemed to her to be miles long, she would never manage to cross it to reach Harry. In her eyes, her Prince Charming was halfway across the world.

Suddenly, she felt someone gently tapping her shoulder and turned around. Behind her was a boy with dark brown hair touching the shoulders of his deep blue dress robes.

“Can I sit down?” he asked Ginny with a sparkling smile, pointing to the empty chair to her right.

Ginny nodded, trying to remember his name. Michael something, maybe.

“I’m Michael Corner.”

That’s right, a Ravenclaw from Harry’s year! Ginny remembered having seen him in class with the Gryffindors, when she was going to meet Hermione to study with her.

“Ginny Weasley,” she said.  
“I know who you are, Ginny,” said Michael. “Bright hair like yours is hard to forget.”

She scowled a little. Another one who thought of her as just another Weasley. Then the Ravenclaw leaned over and whispered in her ear, conspiratorially:

“Between you and me, it’s a damn good thing you’re prettier than your brothers.”

A small laugh escaped Ginny’s lips and Michael straightened up, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth. He gestured towards Ginny’s feet and her sandals, which she had pushed back under her chair.

“Did you hurt yourself?”  
“I danced too much,” she answered. “But it’s all right, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Michael stood up and offered her his arm.

“Would you then do me the honour, kind lady, to dance with me?”

Ginny glanced halfway across the world, but Harry was gone. She looked up at Michael.

“I’d be delighted.”

She quickly put on her sandals and let him guide her to the center of the dance floor. Neville smiled at her as he saw her pass by and Hermione, looking radiant in Viktor Krum’s arms, winked at her, to which she replied with a shy smile. They found a free spot on the dance floor, Michael put one hand on Ginny’s waist, grabbed hers with the other, and the couple joined the waltz.

Two hours later, Michael brought Ginny back to the portrait at the entrance of her common room. He wished her a good night, then, after a moment of hesitation, placed a light kiss on the edge of her lips. She watched him go down the stairs, her cheeks flushed pink, but a radiant smile stuck on her face.

At that exact moment, Harry could have literally been halfway across the world, she wouldn’t even have noticed.


	4. The Smell of Tea

The nine people in Umbridge’s office stared at the door as it closed behind the professor, who was pointing her wand at Harry and Hermione's back.

“Come, come, hurry!” they heard her say in her high-pitched voice.

A silence fell over the room as they all looked at each other, unsure of what to do next. Malfoy eventually leaned on the desk with his arms folded over his chest.

“Well,” he said in a drawling voice as he gazed at his prisoners. “I suppose all we have to do now is wait. We can always hope that Professor Umbridge drops the Mudblood in the lake on their way.”

To Ginny’s right, Ron tried to throw himself on the Slytherin, but the one holding him pulled him back sharply. Malfoy seemed to be about to say something, but he was cut off by a shrill whistling from a corner of the room. They all turned around and saw a small pink teapot emitting swirls of fragrant smoke. Drago sniffed the air.

“Hmm, licorice,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “It’s not my favourite flavour. Would anyone else like a cup? Longbottom? One of the Weasleys perhaps?”

The Slytherins that held them chuckled like dumb gorillas. Ginny tried to twist to the left to relieve her right arm, which was starting to tingle, but Warrington, her captor, tightened his grip on her shoulder. She heard someone clearing their throat to her right and turned her head slightly. Neville’s eyes were turned towards her. When he saw that she was looking at him, he formed three words with his lips.

“Three. Two. One.”

He violently jerked his head backwards in Crabbe’s face, and Crabbe stepped back, swearing, his hands flat on his nose. At the same time, Ginny slammed her heel firmly against the shin of the huge sixth-year who was holding her. When he let go of her arm in shock, Ginny threw a fist to his temple, sending the half stunned young man backwards.

Ron and Luna, seeing what Ginny and Neville had planned, had joined in. Luna, almost without a sound, had managed to Stupefy the Slytherin who had previously been holding her with her own wand. Ron, meanwhile, was still struggling with Montague. The Quidditch player was still holding the Gryffindor by the neck, but Ron had managed to grab his other wrist and held his wand away. Spells were being cast, hitting the wall or the ceiling. A red spray of sparks ricocheted off one of the frames behind the desk, drawing a high-pitched meow from its occupant, and hit the teapot, causing it to explode and silencing its whistle. The hot liquid spilled over the pink carpet, dyeing the ear of the Persian cat frolicking in it to a dark brown and filling the small room with the smell of licorice tea.

At that moment, Ginny felt something graze her shoulder, making her hair flutter around her head. She whipped around to see Malfoy with his wand up. She only had time to see a glimmer of panic pass through his eyes before she cast a Bat-Bogey hex, her specialty. When the Slytherin dropped his wand, using both hands to protect his face, Ginny quickly grabbed it and turned to the others.

Montague was lying on the ground, out cold. Neville had incapacitated Warrington, Crabbe, and Bulstrode, and Luna tied their wrists.

Once all the Slytherins were on the ground, their hands tied—Malfoy still under attack from flesh-coloured bats—, Ginny turned to her friends.

“Come on,” she said, “we have to find Harry and Hermione.”

Neville nodded and the foursome ran out of the office. As they passed the third-floor bins, Ginny threw the confiscated wands into one of them.

When they walked out of the castle and saw Harry and Hermione at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Ginny thought that the battle they had just fought would probably not be the last of the evening—nor the hardest.


	5. The Five Senses

Hidden behind the half-open door to the girls’ locker room, Ginny was waiting for Ron and Harry to leave theirs. Dean, her boyfriend, always stayed in the shower longer than the others, and Ginny wanted to surprise him.

As soon as the red- and brown-haired heads of her brother and his friend disappeared around the corner of the building, Ginny crossed the passageway that led to the boys’ locker room and sneaked in.

Inside, all she could hear was the sound of the shower. She stood still for a moment, listening to make sure, absolutely sure, that all the other boys on the team had left. In the silence of the room, Dean started singing the Weird Sisters’ latest single, out of tune, of course. Ginny bit her lower lip to keep from laughing and approached the wall separating the showers from the rest of the dressing room.

She hadn’t taken three steps before she heard Dean twisting the faucet. The water stopped flowing, and the resulting quiet was almost surprising. She heard her boyfriend pull the shower curtain, then get out, take the towel he had put on the bench and rub herself with it for a few seconds.

"Hey, handsome," Ginny said mischievously when Dean appeared, a red towel tied around his waist.

After a moment of surprise, his lips turned up to form a smile, the one that always made her melt. Ginny let her gaze slide over Dean’s muscular body. His frizzy hair still glittered with countless water droplets. One of them fell on the boy’s broad shoulder, a shoulder Ginny loved to lean on during intimate evenings. The drop began a mad race downwards and the girl followed it with her eyes, first on his muscular chest, then on his flat belly, and lower, lower...

Ginny halted the drop just before it reached the towel, laying a finger low on Dean’s stomach. He inhaled sharply when he felt his girlfriend’s hand, and wrapped his own around her slender waist. Ginny then put both her palms flat on Dean’s chest, the boy’s brown skin still a little damp and warm from the shower. She slid one hand into his hair, enjoying, as always, how it felt rough against her fingers, and yet so soft at the same time.

She nestled in the hollow of the Chaser’s neck, inhaling deeply the fruity scent of his soap. Orange-scented. She had given it to him for Christmas. It was a pleasant improvement on the musky, masculine smell of sweat he had given off half an hour earlier, when he had kissed her to congratulate her on scoring four goals. She didn’t mind a bit of manly scent once in a while—quite the contrary—, but she had to admit that the soap was infinitely more pleasing to her nostrils.

Dean slid a finger under Ginny’s chin and raised her face towards him. He put his lips on hers. Ginny closed her eyes and opened her lips, sliding her tongue over her lover’s, savouring the salty taste she was now accustomed to.

Ginny wanted to taste something of Dean other than his mouth. She slid her small hand down his chest, his stomach, and as she grasped the knot holding the towel, the door opened behind her. The lovers jumped away from each other, their cheeks turning bright red. It was Ron.

“I just forgot my—GINNY!” he shouted when he saw his little sister, her soaking wet t-shirt hugging her chest, standing next to his classmate wearing nothing but a towel.

Shit, she thought.


	6. Here and Now

Ginny sighed as she looked at the much too small group of students in front of her. Seamus and Lavender were sitting next to each other on a training mat, holding a whispered conversation. Hannah, Ernie and Susan were leaning against the wall, seemingly waiting for the meeting to begin. Ginny smiled at Michael, sitting next to a dummy. A few other D.A. members had answered the call, but there were few of them, far too few.

“Maybe we should wait a few more minutes before we start...”  
“It’s already a quarter past nine, Neville. Nobody else is coming.”

Neville shrugged and turned to the few students facing them. He cleared his throat, and the two or three people who were talking fell silent and turned to him.

“Well, uh... hello,” he began. “Well, as you know, You-Know-Who controls Hogwarts, and, uh, the D.A. has never been more important than it is now.”

He glanced at Ginny and Luna, as if asking for their help, and they nodded, encouraging him to continue.

“Harry didn’t come back, neither did Hermione and Ron, but injustice still exists here and it’s up to us to keep fighting, to do everything we can to help them.”

Susan raised her hand and Neville paused in surprise.

“Yes, Susan?” Luna said in her calm voice, less dreamy than the year before.  
“Ginny, do you know where they are?”

Everyone, including Neville and Luna, turned to Ginny. The redhead took a step forward, making eye contact with each of the D.A. members in turn.

“No, I don’t know,” she began. “We haven’t heard from them since Bill’s wedding. But they’re doing what they have to do to destroy You-Know-Who, and it’s up to us to do the same at Hogwarts.”

Some of them looked at each other, puzzled.

“But there’s barely a dozen of us,” Seamus replied. “I’ve learned a lot here, but what can we do against Snape, against the Carrows?”  
“Harry was alone when he defeated You-Know-Who,” Luna said. “He, Ron and Hermione are only three against all the Death Eaters who are looking for them. Between the ten of us, we can make life very difficult for our three enemies.”

Neville nodded enthusiastically, and Ginny noticed that the puzzled looks had turned into smiles during Luna’s intervention. She smiled also when Neville started talking again:

“The students who came back, if they aren’t sons or daughters of Death Eaters, are going to get shaken up this year. In the less than two weeks since classes started, we’ve already seen what life under the Carrows would be like. We can’t let that happen.”

He turned to Ginny.

“Yes, there are few of us,” she continued. “But when Harry needs us, we’ll answer his call, just as we did last year. Here, now, there’s us, Dumbledore’s new Army. In his memory, we owe it to ourselves to do all we can to help defeat Voldemort, whether it’s protecting the first years from the Carrows or throwing Dungbombs in Snape’s office.”

Lavender and Hannah laughed, making Ginny smile mischievously. The palpable uncertainty from the start of the meeting had now completely disappeared, replaced by a sense of excitement, of anticipation, even. Michael noticed a table that had appeared in the corner of the room, carrying a bottle of Butterbeer and as many glasses as there were attendees. They all stood up and surrounded the table, each taking a glass.

“Here and now,” Ernie said, raising his. “For Harry.”  
“And for Dumbledore,” Luna added.

Everyone drank their glass in a single gulp. Ginny looked around her at those who would be her fighting companions for the long year ahead, a sense of pride swelling in her chest.

Here, now, the war had begun.


	7. The Wait

Sitting on the only chair in her little room at Aunt Muriel’s, Ginny was reading. Well, she was trying to read, her mind unable to concentrate for more than two and a half minutes on the page in front of her. She could hear Muriel and her parents speaking quietly in the kitchen downstairs. Conversations from which she was always excluded, even though she periodically reminded her mother that she was old enough to take part in everything that was going on.

She finally heard the grandfather clock in the living room strike ten o’clock and straightened up, pulling the small radio on her bedside table towards her. She tapped the antennas with her wand and whispered that evening’s password, “Fawkes.”

“Good evening to the listeners of Potterwatch,” Lee’s voice rang out.

Ginny swore and lowered the volume. She listened carefully, but heard nothing from downstairs. Her parents would be furious if they knew that Charlie had shown her how to follow Lee Jordan’s program on the radio a few months ago. Once reassured that no one had heard her, she turned the volume up a little.

"... and their neighbours, a young Muggle couple, were abducted last Friday,” Lee said. “Please observe a moment of silence with us for these missing persons.”

Silence fell and Ginny wondered what she had missed. At every broadcast, new kidnappings and new deaths were announced. Sometimes it was people she knew, her father’s colleagues, her brothers’ friends, or people she had been to Hogwarts with. Some time ago, Ted Tonks’ death had devastated her parents. The day before yesterday, she had heard that her friend Hannah Abbott’s mother had been murdered, and she had spent the night crying.

“Royal, you wanted to tell us some happy news from Hogwarts, I believe?” Lee continued.

Ginny straightened up, listening.

“Indeed, River,” came Kingsley’s deep voice. “We know that a group of students are resisting the regime imposed by Snape and the Carrows. Some of them seem to have managed to slip Moonseed poison into their meals. Unfortunately, they received the antidote in time, but they still spent an unpleasant night puking their guts out.”  
“You can’t say they didn’t deserve it.”

Ginny smiled broadly, sending her mental congratulations to Neville who, she had no doubt, must have concocted the poison from the plants he was growing in the Room of Requirement. She was proud of them, but just underneath that facade, she felt so useless. They were all out there fighting while she was moping at her aunt’s house. For a month, she hadn’t even set foot outside, collecting as much news as she could about her brothers and her friends. She had hidden the DA Galleon under her pillow and took it out every hour, desperately waiting for Neville to contact her, as he had promised to do, the minute Harry returned to Hogwarts.

“Romulus, any word about Harry?”  
“No,” Remus intervened. “But in this situation, I say no news is good news. At least that means that You-Know-Who’s followers haven’t found him since he escaped from Malfoy Manor.”

Ginny sighed with relief, as she did every time someone she knew was mentioned on the radio—for something other than announcing their death, of course. Even last week, when they mentioned Percy’s work at the Ministry in passing, she had been relieved. Foolish as he was, Percy was her brother and she didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

She suddenly heard footsteps on the stairs. She quickly turned off the radio and opened her book to a random page, just as her father stuck his head through the doorway.

“It’s late, Ginny.”  
“Yes, Dad, I’m finishing my chapter and going to bed.”

Arthur smiled at her and, after a “good night, sweetheart,” closed the door. Ginny turned the radio back on just in time to hear the next password—Gideon—then laid her head on the pillow. She slipped one hand underneath it and closed her fist on the Galleon that was hidden there. All she had to do now was wait for it to get hot.


	8. To put one’s head in the lion’s mouth

Ginny was alone in the seventh floor hallway. Harry, Hermione and Ron had just entered the Room of Requirement, without telling her what they were going to do in it, of course. From where she was, she could hear the distant sounds of the battle and could periodically see colourful explosions through the window.

She was biting her thumbnail as she looked around. There had obviously been fighting here; a few yards in front of her, a gaping hole in the wall revealed an empty classroom, and bricks were strewn across the paved floor.

An explosion sounded behind her, much closer than what she had heard so far. The floor shook beneath her and she nearly lost her balance, putting one hand against the wall to stay upright.

“What are you waiting for?” came a voice from her left.

Ginny whipped around, pulling her wand from her pocket in a fluid motion and pointing it towards the face of a... troll in a tutu. After a moment, she lowered her arm.

“What do you mean?” she asked the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy.  
“I mean that I’ve been seeing you and your friends coming here in secret for three years. Judging by the noises I hear and how excited my trolls are, what you’ve been training for is happening right now.”

Ginny blinked, flabbergasted. All this time they had thought Barnabas was just a madman—who else but a madman would want to teach ballet to trolls? To learn that not only did he know what was behind the opposite wall, but that he had guessed what was going on there, was more than a little astonishing.

“The brown-haired guy told you to stay here,” the portrait continued. “Do you really have any intention of obeying?”

Ginny shook her head energetically. She’d answered Neville’s call with the intention of fighting, of course she wouldn’t go back to the Room of Requirement when Harry was finished.

“Then we come back to my original question,” Barnabas said in a calm voice. “What are you waiting for?”

Yes, he had a point, what was she waiting for? She didn’t hesitate one second longer and ran away, shouting a “thank you!” to Barnabas as she leaped lightly over the small mountain of bricks under the hole she’d seen earlier.

“Good luck, miss!” he shouted.

Ginny hurried down the first staircase she came across, finding herself on a completely empty floor. The outside wall had been smashed in, the gaping hole letting in a fresh wind. That was probably the explosion she’d heard earlier, she thought before continuing on her way.

On the fifth floor, she saw some students throwing bricks through a window. She recognized Cho Chang and Michael Corner and shouted encouragement, even though she disliked the young woman. Everyone fighting the Death Eaters was a friend tonight. Her little teenage grudges could wait.

It was only on the fourth floor that she met a real fight, Dean Thomas and Augusta Sinistra grappling with two hooded Death Eaters.

She had a little—really tiny—thought for the thrashing she’d get when her mother found out how she had thrown herself into the lion’s den like that, when Dean shouted at her to watch out and she squatted down, barely avoiding getting hit. She got up and cast her first spell, throwing herself into the battle that had just begun anew.


	9. Forgotten Words

_Meet us in the Room of Requirement after dinner tonight. We are the Survivors of the Second War, we deserve a little joy, relaxation and alcohol before classes start. Come celebrate our return to Hogwarts, all houses welcome._

Ginny reread the invitation that had been slipped under her bedside lamp that morning as she approached the Room of Requirement which, to the displeasure of the teachers, had become quite famous among Hogwarts students over the previous year. She had been pestering Hermione all day to accompany her, but her friend had a romantic date with her fiancé that evening via the fireplace.

She made the three usual back and forth trips past the wall—waving to Barnabas the Barmy as she walked by—until a small door materialized. She opened it, unsure that she had found what she was looking for, but was greeted by loud rock music and the sound of conversations and laughter. Smiling, she walked in and closed the door behind her.

On the back wall hung a large banner with a close-up of Colin Creevey’s grinning face. A large number of candles were burning on the makeshift altar, honouring the only fallen fighter from their year. Ginny had a thought for her friend, then set out to find Luna, who had to be around somewhere.

She hadn’t taken three steps when she was approached by Hugh Jenkins, a Ravenclaw from her year.

“Ginny, there you are!” he said. “Tell me, did you set this up?”

Several other students had heard and had turned to her, curious. She shook her head.

“But … who then?” Hugh asked, looking around.

Theories were flying: the teachers, maybe? The house elves? Ghosts? Harry Potter himself? Ginny could at least guarantee that her boyfriend had nothing to do with it.

She set off again in search of Luna, bumping into Dean, who had returned to Hogwarts to finish his schooling, like Hermione. They exchanged some news before parting ways.

Passing by the bar, Ginny poured herself a glass of Fire Whisky. Her brothers had already given her a taste a few times when their parents were away, but this was her first drink as an adult, and she intended to enjoy it!

When she turned around, she found herself face to face with Patricia Freeburgh, a Slytherin who had insulted her at every possible chance since their first year. Traitor to her blood, weasel, dirty redhead… She stiffened, ready to face anything Freeburgh threw at her. She nearly dropped her drink when the Slytherin said:

“I’m sorry.”  
“You’re …,” Ginny repeated, stunned.

Freeburgh smiled.

“Sorry,” she finished. “I’ve been … let’s just say, not very nice to you and your friends for the last six years.”

Ginny sniffed. That was putting it mildly; she had been the one who tied Luna’s shoes to the ceiling in their fifth year!

“Yes, I know, I was really obnoxious,” the blonde-haired girl continued, lowering her head, her bangs masking her blue eyes. “But I’d like—if you want to, of course—to start over. After the battle, over the summer, I had time to reflect on my actions, and … well, I regret what I did, and I’d like to make peace.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. It was almost too good to be true, she wanted to turn to check if Malfoy was standing behind her, ready to play some trick to humiliate her. She was ready to blow her off, but as she opened her mouth she remembered Harry’s words, before he dropped her off at the train. “This is the beginning of a new world, for them and for us. Everything is starting afresh.” After all, Patricia seemed sincere, and she wasn’t the daughter of a Death Eater…

“But you probably don’t want me,” said Patricia, twirling a lock of her hair. “After all, I’ve insulted you so much…”  
“They were just words.”

The Slytherin raised her head, her eyes wide. Ginny smiled at her.

“They were just words,” she repeated. “From now on, they are forgotten.”

She shook the other girl’s hand and finally saw Luna over her shoulder.

“Come on,” she said, taking her new friend’s arm. “Let me introduce you to Luna Lovegood.”


	10. Six O'Clock

A strand of hair had escaped Ginny’s ponytail and kept flying in her face. She pushed it impatiently back behind her ear, not having time to fix her hair. Repeating this gesture for the umpteenth time, she almost got hit in the face by the Quaffle, but managed to catch it. Holding it under her right arm, she raced towards the hoops at the end of the pitch.

“Thims to Weasley!” the announcer shouted. “Weasley flies towards the goal, with a Bludger in hot pursuit...”

Ginny quickly turned around, realizing that there was indeed a Bludger chasing her. She zigzagged a few times, hoping to lose it, but she managed nothing more than to get hit by a Chaser from the opposite team, who sped off towards the Harpies’ goals.

“Crawford scores! 170 to 110 for the Caerphilly Catapults!”

The redhead swore under her breath. It was her first game with the Harpies, Gemma Claflin had fallen ill the day before and Ginny had had to replace her at the last minute. Even though she had scored two of her team’s goals, she was ashamed of her performance, as the nervous butterflies that had taken up residence in her stomach several hours before the game—and that damn lock of hair that kept crossing her line of sight!—made her make many more mistakes than she was used to.

Suddenly, the crowd started screaming more loudly than before. Ginny looked up and saw Genevieve Sullivan, the Harpies’ Seeker, hurtling across the pitch. Ginny heard someone approaching behind her and lowered her head just in time to avoid being beheaded by Lowell, the big Catapults Seeker.

“Gin’!” Georgie Thims, who had retrieved the Quaffle in the confusion, shouted.

Ginny quickly turned around and flew alongside Georgie. Valmai Morgan, the third Chaser, soon joined her teammates, and the three Harpies tossed the Quaffle back and forth, avoiding being intercepted by the opposing Chasers, until Valmai threw it accurately into the right hoop.

“A goal for Morgan! 170 to 120 for... No, wait!”

Ginny, Georgie and Valmai turned to the announcer, who wasn’t even looking at them. Ginny followed his gaze, a few metres above her, and saw Genevieve, her long brown braids floating behind her, her fist raised triumphantly above her head. A silence fell over the stadium.

“Genevieve Sullivan catches the Golden Snitch!” the announcer said, her voice thundering in the silence. “The Holyhead Harpies win the game, 270 points to 170!”

After a second or two, everyone started shouting at the same time. The spectators in the stands, most of them from Holyhead, were shouting with joy and were laughing loudly at the few Caerphilly fans who had dared to show their faces.

Ginny was smiling in amazement as she hugged the rest of her team before landing. Everyone was patting her on the back, telling her that she had done well, “for a nineteen-year-old kid.”

The team went back down to the ground and were greeted by an overexcited Gwenog Jones.

“Three hours, ladies!” she shouted. “Three hours!”

Ginny was astonished. Had the game really lasted that long? She felt as if it had gone by in a flash. She looked at her watch—a gift from Harry on her last birthday—and, indeed, it was six o’clock at night.

I won my very first professional Quidditch game on Tuesday, May 8, 2001, at six o’clock at night, she thought as she headed to the shower with her teammates. I will never forget it.


	11. Toy Soldiers

The ultrasound gel was cold on Ginny’s belly, which was just starting to become round, while the magico-gynecologist passed her sensor over it. The young woman’s eyes were fixed on a screen showing only grey doodles, occasionally tapping her keyboard or the pregnant woman’s belly with her wand.

Harry, standing faithfully by his wife’s side, held her hand so tightly that she thought he was going to crush it. It was the first time he could come to one of these appointments. The three previous times, he’d been on a mission with the Aurors and hadn’t been able to get away. Ginny had been accompanied by a brother, sister-in-law or parent. But this time, Voldemort could have come back to life, Harry was not going to miss another one.

“Is everything all right, Doctor?” he asked worriedly, taking the prolonged silence as a bad sign.  
“Everything is perfect,” she answered in a soft voice. “Here...”

She touched the screen with her wand and the sound of a rapid, fluttering heartbeat filled the exam room. Ginny smiled in amazement and Harry wiped away a small tear.

“Look here,” the doctor said, pointing to her screen with a thin finger.

Harry and Ginny approached their faces and saw a tiny little fetus, with two arms, two legs, a disproportionately large head...

“It’s your baby,” the young woman said needlessly.  
“He’s beautiful,” Harry whispered.  
“Do you want to know the sex?”

Ginny and Harry looked at each other. They had had long discussions on the subject, seeking the opinion of their family. Molly and Arthur had always wanted to know, and so had Hermione and Ron—“How are you going to decide what colour to paint the room, if you don’t?” Ron had asked—, but Percy and Audrey had wanted to keep the surprise until the end. In fact, he had given his little sister a box of toy soldiers. Mum gave it to me when I was a kid,” he explained. “Molly and Lucy don’t use them. Take them, maybe you’ll have a little boy who wants to play with them.”

After several days of debate, the couple had finally decided to find out. Before leaving the house that morning, Ginny had slipped one of the toy soldiers into her pocket, she didn’t know why. She had no preference, girl or boy, it didn’t matter. But she had this little tickle in the back of her brain... “It’s normal,” her mother had said when she told her. “You can always guess beforehand.”

“Yes, we want to know,” Harry replied, taking Ginny’s hand between his own.

The Healer tapped two keys on her keyboard, made a small circle with her wand, and then turned to the future parents.

“It’s a boy.”

Ginny’s smile was quickly hidden by her husband’s lips, who leaned over to give her a fervent kiss. She slipped a hand into her pocket and formed a fist around the toy soldier. His tiny wand was pressing painfully against her palm, but she didn’t care. Soon, she thought, a new little fist will be holding you, little soldier. My son’s fist.

The young doctor stood up and began to walk towards the door.

“I’ll leave you alone for a while,” she said as she left them, a tender smile on her lips.  
“Thank you, Dr. Tiller,” Ginny said.

Harry laid a light kiss on his wife’s red head, then put both hands on her belly.

“Hello, baby,” he whispered. “Hello, little James.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh okay, I kind of no longer stand by this chapter and its sexist clichés. Don't really know what I was thinking when I wrote it.
> 
> I do know Ron's thing about room colours was a joke though. I'm not that terrible.


	12. Playing With Fire

"Hugo!" Lily called.  
"Louis!" Albus cried out in turn.

Ginny, Harry, Hermione and Ron were watching the children with amusement. It was Lily Luna’s thirteenth birthday, and the young lady had decided to play an improvised game of Quidditch with her guests before blowing out the candles. She and her brother Albus were team captains and were dividing up their friends and cousins. James, not very interested in sports, had come to sit with his parents, uncle and aunt.

"Look," he said, "Lily is picking all the redheads and Albus is taking the others."

The birthday girl was indeed surrounded by five redheads—mostly cousins—while Al’s team consisted of blonds, brunettes and blacks. The two captains looked around them and saw a problem: there were only thirteen of them.

"It’s okay, Lil’," Albus said. "We can play like that!"  
"You’re just saying that because you’re the one with the biggest team, we’re just six!"

She looked around the Potters’ big yard and saw James sitting next to the grown-ups.

"James!" she called out. "Come join my team."  
"When hippogriffs grow teeth," her older brother answered calmly.

The young redhead put her fists on her hips, assuming a position that strangely reminded Harry of that of his wife when he forgot to pick up his socks.

"James Sirius Potter! It’s my birthday and I want you to play with me!"  
"Lily Luna Potter!" James replied. "You’re my little sister and I don’t want to play with you!"  
"James...," Ginny began, wanting to calm things down before they got out of hand—her children got along well in general, but they had still inherited their parents’ character!

But she was interrupted by Ron, who suddenly put his glass on the small patio table around which they were sitting. The other four people sitting with him jumped.

"What the hell is he doing here?" he grumbled while looking towards the entrance to the courtyard.

They followed his gaze and saw a tall blond man with his hand on the shoulder of his smaller replica.

"Scorpius!" Lily called, waving a hand towards the newcomer. "Come on, let’s play Quidditch."

The young Malfoy’s face lit up with a big smile that completely transformed him, erasing any resemblance to his father’s pinched look. He tried to join his friend, but his father held him back. Scorpius turned and said a few words to him. With a frown, Draco finally lowered his hand reluctantly, and Scorpius ran to kiss Lily on the cheek and wish her a happy birthday.

"What’s he doing here?" Ron repeated, turning to his sister.  
"Lily invited Scorpius," she replied with a shrug.  
"They’re always together at school," James added.  
"What?!" Harry exclaimed, spitting out his iced tea. "My daughter, friends with a Malfoy?!"

Ginny glared at her husband. Ron, meanwhile, had turned back to the impromptu Quidditch pitch.

"He’s playing with fire by coming here, the little blondy..."

Hermione burst out laughing.

"Quite literally," she said, waving her hand towards Lily’s team: Scorpius was the only towhead among six flamboyant redheads.

Ginny saw that Draco still hadn’t moved, standing at the entrance to the yard, seemingly hesitating to go back for his son and forcibly bring him home.

"Maybe we should invite him to come and have tea with us," Hermione suggested, having followed her sister-in-law’s gaze.

Her husband and Ginny’s whipped around and looked at her, eyes wide, too stunned to say anything.

"Now I think you’re the one playing with fire," Ginny remarked with a smile.

Draco, seeming to sense that he was being talked about, had turned to the Potter-Weasleys. Ginny waved at him with a small smile. Appearing to take it as a guarantee that his son wouldn’t be killed and eaten that evening, Malfoy left the Potter home, not without a last glance at the Quidditch pitch, where the fourteen children had just launched themselves into the air.

Ginny sighed. It was a start at least.


	13. Orchid

When the small orchestra at the front of the church at Godric’s Hollow began playing the song, Ginny turned with the entire audience to the small door at the back.

Little Kimberly, Teddy’s three-year-old daughter, began the long walk to the altar, throwing handfuls of orchid petals, Lily’s favorite flower, to either side. The church was filled with tender sighs: Kim was so cute, with her little candy-pink dress and purple hair that her mother had braided that very morning.

Flowers had been Lily’s very first decision when planning her wedding. "Lilies?" she had said disdainfully to her mother’s suggestion. "For the wedding of a Lily? What a cliche! No, I want orchids!“ So it had been orchids.

Then came the bridesmaids, resplendent in their dark pink dresses, each with a bouquet of white orchids in their hands. Roxanne had also pricked flowers around her bun, from which not a hair sticking out. The immaculate petals stood out against the young woman’s dark hair and brown skin. At her side, Annabelle Pearson, Lily’s friend from Hogwarts, had chosen to pin a single orchid behind her ear, holding back a cascade of black hair that fell to her kidneys.

Ginny noticed, amused, that all the young men in the church were staring at the beautiful young women walking down the aisle with broad smiles on their faces. She saw James elbowing Al, who stared at Annabelle with his mouth ajar.

“You have a girlfriend, silly,” he muttered, before being shushed by several of his aunts.

As soon as the bridesmaids reached the right side of the altar, the song changed, taking on a more solemn tone. The audience stood up, turning as one to face the back of the church. After a few seconds of waiting, two silhouettes appeared in the doorframe.

Harry, dressed in his finest attire, proudly led his daughter down the aisle. With a puffed up chest, he looked straight ahead with a smile so wide that it seemed as if his jaw would drop off at any moment.

As he’d gotten dressed that morning, he had looked for a few seconds at his collection of medals, which he had earned after the war. “Are you going to wear them?” Ginny had asked as she put on her earrings. But Harry had closed the box he kept them in and put it back on the desk. “No,” he had said. “Today is Lily’s day, not mine.”

Ginny finally laid eyes on her daughter. Radiant in her white dress, she seemed to light up the people around her with her infectious smile. Her red hair was curled in wide curls and fell freely over her shoulders, held only by a thin silver tiara, which held a light veil. Her red cheeks betrayed her awareness that all eyes were on her, but her brown eyes were riveted on her fiancé, who was waiting for her at the altar.

As Lily and Harry walked past, Ginny held her hands to her chest, moved almost to tears. When she let out a small tear, Hermione, who had experienced the same thing at Rose’s wedding eighteen months earlier, put one hand on her shoulder and leaned over.

“Wait until you have grandchildren.”

With a small laugh, Ginny shook her head.

Harry kissed her daughter on both cheeks, giving her a hand so she could walk up the two steps to her fiancé without falling down, and then returned to sit beside Ginny, passing a hand around her waist. She saw that behind his glasses, his green eyes were wetter than usual.

In front of the altar, the bride and groom were facing each other, seeming to be competing over who would have the widest smile.

Ginny glanced across the aisle. Astoria frantically wiped her eyes with a silk handkerchief, and even Draco seemed touched.

“Dear guests,” began the wizard at the front, and Ginny turned to him. “We are here on this happy day to join this young man, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, and this young woman, Lily Luna Potter, in holy matrimony...”


	14. The Books Are Lying

“Ginny!” Harry called from the bottom of the stairs. “You’ve got mail!”

Ginny put away her quill and went downstairs to the living room, where her husband was waiting for her with a parcel in his hands. He sighed when he saw her coming.

“Still dressed in black?” he asked tenderly. “Ginny...”

“When I die I want my children to be able to mourn as they choose, so let me do the same for my mother,” she replied a little too dryly.

Harry raised a hand in surrender, and then gave her the box and kissed her on the cheek.

“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

Ginny first opened the letter that was attached to the package. Written by the notary, it was short and to the point:

_Mrs. Potter,_

_Your mother left you her cookbooks, which you will find in the enclosed package._

_I’m very sorry for your loss,_

_Herbert Sundae_

Ginny frowned. Cookbooks? She thought Molly would leave them to Phlegm, so she’d stop cooking French food that disgusted the whole family. She opened the box and took out the first book, a simple brown notebook with an apple engraved on the cover. She opened it and read the first page.

_This book contains the recipes of the Prewett women, preserved for generations - starting with mine, Anne Isadora Prewett, 1701. No one other than my descendants - of which you are one if you are reading these lines - can read the recipes contained between these covers. I hope that you will continue the tradition and copy your own recipes onto the blank pages reserved for you, and then pass this notebook on to your daughter, if you have one, and then to your granddaughters, great-granddaughters..._

Ginny was surprised: she had never seen this notebook, had never even heard of it. She flipped through it and saw that at the end, about ten pages were indeed blank. She wondered for a moment how a simple notebook like this one could contain the recipes of all the Prewett women over the past 300 years, but she thought that with magic, anything was possible. On one of the first pages, she found the recipe for her favourite lemon cake, the one her mother used to make for all her birthdays. The signature at the bottom of the page said it was by Jillian Ophelia Prewett, 1796. She called Harry. Immediately, her husband’s disheveled head appeared in the kitchen door.

“Can you read this?” she asked, handing him the book.

He took it from her hands and looked at the page.

“Yes, of course I can.”

Ginny smiled sadly. The Prewett girls’ inheritance was apparently a lie...

“But since when do you put a pound of garlic salt in a lemon cake?” he continued, frowning.

Ginny grabbed the book quickly, her eyes wide open. She read the recipe from beginning to end, but saw no instructions about the garlic salt.

“Where do you see that?” she asked her husband.

“There,” he said, pointing to the line about the flour. “And here, they say to add a cup of Bowtruckle scales.”

Ginny read, ’mix in a cup of lemon peel.’

She burst out laughing. Harry looked at her, his eyes round behind his glasses.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s the book,” she choked out. “It’s lying!”


	15. The Wind Is Rising

_Harry Potter_

_Heroic father and friend_

Ginny reread the words carved on her husband’s tombstone once again. Her eyes filled with tears and the epitaph became illegible, but it didn’t matter: it was engraved in her heart.

“Ginny,” called Ron from down the hill. “You coming?”

All her family and friends were waiting for her at the bottom of the hill, ready to return to the Weasley-Granger home for the wake. Harry had told people hundreds of times in the months before his death that he didn’t want a high-profile funeral. Family and friends, that was it. That’s why it had been rushed, just over twenty-four hours after his death, so that they could hide the event from the media for a little while longer and prevent the whole world from showing up in the little cemetery at Godric’s Hollow.

“Just a moment,” she replied.

She drew a circle with her wand, making a wreath of lilacs. He had always loved it when Ginny washed her hair with her lilac shampoo. He loved the smell, he said.

She placed the wreath around a corner on the tombstone, stroking her husband’s name one last time with a frail finger, then put one hand on the ground to get up. At that moment, an owl landed on the stone, a few centimetres from her eyes. It took Ginny a few moments to figure out why the owl was giving her a strong sense of déjà vu, and then she remembered. Hedwig. The bird’s white feathers made it so similar to the owl Harry had had at Hogwarts, it was almost as if her spirit had come to say one last goodbye to its former master.

Ginny opened her mouth—to draw the attention of her friends and family to the apparition, or to talk to the bird, she wasn’t sure—when it stretched out a leg, and Ginny saw that it was carrying a small parchment envelope.

She reached out a trembling hand and untied it, unsealing the envelope and pulling out a card in Gryffindor’s colours. She opened it and read the little note it contained, neatly written in brown ink.

_We would like to send you our deepest condolences on the passing of your husband, Harry Potter, the hero of the wizarding world. Please know that he will always be remembered._

_The Harvey family_

_Alfred, Philippa, Lisbeth and Samuel_

“What’s that?” asked Ron, who had approached her without her hearing and taken the Harvey card from her hands.

He read it in a few seconds, then glared at the owl, as if it was all its fault.

“Aren’t they ashamed? Bothering you like this, while you’re grieving for your husband...”

“Give me that, Ron,” Ginny said calmly as she stood up.

She had already received three similar letters the day before, from people in England who had heard of the death of the Boy Who Lived and expressed their condolences. She would have thought it would have insulted her, strangers claiming her Harry as their own, but she had put the letters in a big box with a smile on her face. She didn’t share her Harry with them, she realized. They had lost an image, a hero they read about in books. She had lost her first love, her husband, the father of her children, her best friend. No one could ever steal that from her.

These cards and letters that came to her touched her. Strangers wanted to share their grief with her, no matter how small, and she was willing to accept them.

She took the little card from Ron’s hands and slipped it into her pocket, nodding to the owl. It flew away in a great flapping of its wings, and a strand of Ginny’s white hair fluttered against her cheek. She followed its flight with her eyes until it reached the horizon, thinking that these first letters were just the first gust of what would be a storm of sympathy and condolences.

When the owl had disappeared from sight, she took her brother’s arm, ready to come down and face the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, did you like it? Should I go ahead and translate more?

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Next chapiter in a week :)


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